Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Bank Lending Keeps Dropping

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Bank Lending Keeps Dropping

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124019360346233883.html

    According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Treasury Department data, the biggest recipients of taxpayer aid made or refinanced 23% less in new loans in February, the latest available data, than in October, the month the Treasury kicked off the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

    The total dollar amount of new loans declined in three of the four months the government has reported this data. All but three of the 19 largest TARP recipients with comparable data originated fewer loans in February than they did at the time they received federal infusions.

    The Journal's analysis paints a starker picture of the lending environment than the monthly snapshots released by the government and is a reminder of the severity of the credit contraction. One reason for the disparity: The Treasury crunches the data in a way that some experts say understates the lending decline.

  • #2
    Re: Bank Lending Keeps Dropping

    When I was in the coin business, I would lend $50 to soldiers on Friday nights so that they could go drinking and enjoy the weekend. They would write a cheque to me for $80, and away they would go with the $50 in cash. And to my amazement, that game was barely profitable.

    I had a tax auditor sit with me one evening, and he couldn't believe that $80 for $50 could be barely profitable. I had to show him my drawer full of bad cheques with stampings: "account closed", "moved", "insufficient funds", etc.

    I am not surprised that a bank would choose to sit on funds rather than lend funds at to-day's record low interest rates. Why lend at 4 or 5% when the real rate, the rate to make the loan profitable, is more like 14% plus points and fees?

    What the government deems by fiat is not always what is profitable nor prudent in business. The objectives of government planners are not always coincident with the objectives of business.... If such objectives were coincident, communism would have been a roaring success in Russia and Cuba.

    Comment

    Working...
    X